2 out of 4 stars
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The novel, Black Tie Affair, by Ken Atri, conveys a story about the life experiences of Robert Davenport. Robert runs a club named Club Zyanya, and he is married to Jennifer, who nags and abuses him emotionally on a regular basis. A lady confused, Jennifer seizes every opportunity to put Robert down until one day he decides that it’s time to move on and rebuild his life. Luckily, he has friends, who are like siblings to him. Come what may, they are always there for him. Being surrounded with such dear people, living apart from Jennifer, and seeking solace in alcohol incessantly, can he achieve his desired success and happiness?
Exploring the themes of the beauty of friendship, love, and loyalty, this fiction accentuates the extent of what one can achieve when he is with the right crowd. Without mincing words, this story tells how a good marriage brings out the best in a couple and how a bad one can mar them, even their kids. Again, it makes visible how children suffer the most when they are neglected and displaced due to a bitter divorce, and it exposes how some divorced, single parents have to sacrifice so much to minimize damage.
Although the plot of this narrative is unpredictable, it's shallow. Clearly, there are skimpy details of events and characters, and this made the text less fluid and engaging. Moreover, the dialogues are few and dry. All the characters talk the same way. Written from the third person point of view, the narration keeps going back and forth, and there are ceaseless repetitions of facts. Several characters died at different times from illness, and I was uncomfortable with the number of deaths of loved ones. For certain, this is not a tale for readers that get uneasy reading about much morbid details.
Every now and then, this story spotlights the consequences of the abuse of drugs and alcohol. No less, this book is professionally edited. I noticed only two grammatical errors. In addition, the characters are kind of interesting. For instance, Robert, the protagonist, is nice and caring. However, all the personae were not fully developed, and I found it difficult to connect with them. Romance is included in the narration, but the description of this aspect is superficial.
Finally, whereas this book is easy to read and gets some relevant messages across to its readers, I feel more details should have been added to it. For this reason, I rate it 2 out of 4 stars and recommend it for those who are okay with plain fictional novels involving divorce, romance, true friendships, and the abuse of alcohol and pills.
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Black Tie Affair
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